The elephant in the room is that Australia is part of the Anglosphere, irrespective of geographic location. So is New Zealand; so is the US, so is Canada. None of us has anything in common with Asia. We have rule of law, democracy, property rights, free enterprise and social freedoms. We can be useful to, and gain from our neighbours, but the twain shall never meet.

I personally found this a very informative guide to the geopolical map of the Middle East. The United States and the West will bring more misery on the innocent people of the area, as they have done, by intervening with the best intention. I admit of course, though, that they will have great influence in maintaining the area free from nuclear proliferation and keeping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at bay.

It is amazing how poor Americans are at understanging China as I said in my comment, It Is Not China's Fault, Nov. 2015, on Michael Pillsbury/The Hundred-Year Marathon, amazon usa. There is something that the Middle East including Persia and Turky, India and Europe have in common, that is, something only China does not share with them. "One determining influence on East Asian civilization has been its relative isolation from the other great civilizations of mankind (E.O.Reischauer, J.K.Fairbank, and A.G.Craig, East Asia)."
China had been accustomed to living in its own world, looking down on its neighbouring dwarfs. It has lost its arrogant priviledge and got to live in a world on which it is heavily dependent. In this world, it has lost monopolistic competitiveness, as it once had, in industy, cultural attraction and political ideals.

The United States has had and continue to have military superiority in East Asia, but China seems to know better and go on with its sea expansion without being scalded; it knows that US military superiority will never be exercised 'on the ground or on the sea.'

I wanted to have sent my comment just above to Dr. Alon Ben-Meir/Questions and answers about some of the raging events in the MIddler East, but I was confused. I am sorry.